Woman Says She Was Imprisoned By In-laws For Years – NRK Rogaland – Local News, TV and Radio

– I was dishonored all the time by my in-laws. They had no respect for me. They told me I was not worthy to leave the house or put on the clothes I wanted, the Pakistani woman told Stavanger District Court in a video link.

The woman currently lives at a strictly confidential address somewhere in Norway with her two minor children.

– None of them said anything positive about me. Am I not a person with dignity and feelings ?, he also asked.

The prosecution believes that the woman actually lived as a prisoner for seven years. He came to Norway in 2010 to marry his cousin.

The woman explained that during all these years she was only allowed to leave the house alone with garbage bags, or to pick up the mail.

– He lived all the time with great fear.

When she went to the doctor, or for a pregnancy check, she was always accompanied by several members of the in-laws who spoke for her, according to her own explanations.

A GP who testified in court said he reacted to how incapacitated the woman appeared to be from those who accompanied her to medical classes.

The in-laws also took the woman’s children on trips to Pakistan without her being able to join, according to the prosecution.

– The in-laws beat her only when she asked permission to go out to pick up the children from kindergarten, or to do other nice things. He lived all the time with a great fear of violence, said police attorney Kristin Aasberg Ueland in her proceeding with prosecutor Nina Grande.

Grande claimed that the in-laws threatened to send the woman back to Pakistan as a divorced woman, without her children and deprived of all honor and status.

Complaint of three and a half years in prison

Nina Grande came to court with harsh criticism of the aid apparatus in the family’s municipality of residence in Rogaland, which failed to uncover the horrible conditions in which she believes the woman and child lived.

On Thursday morning, the prosecutor filed a demand for three and a half years in prison for the in-laws, both in their fifties.

They are charged with aggravated physical and mental abuse against the daughter-in-law and the eldest grandson.

– The offended woman has lived as in a prison, said the prosecutor.

The victim’s husband was never charged with being mentally retarded.

His two brothers in their 20s are accused of aggravated physical and mental abuse against the boy who is his nephew.

For the brothers, the prosecutor filed a demand for prison for a year and a half and a year and four months.

The criminal case against the four has been in district court for five weeks.

– Mother-in-law often the worst

In the apartment that police raided in the spring of 2018, members of the four-generation family lived under the same roof.

The daughter-in-law has explained to the police that the mother-in-law was the most active perpetrator.

Anja Bredal, a researcher at the Welfare Research Institute NOVA, testified in court. She has done extensive research on forced marriage and honor-related violence.

Bredal says it is not unusual for the mother-in-law to use the greatest amount of violence in such cases.

– There is a strict hierarchy in these families. The mother-in-law is the closest to the daughter-in-law, and she is the one who should have control over her. So often it is the mother-in-law who actively sanctions or encourages other family members to sanction to maintain control, says Bredal.

Her diploma was based on conversations she has had with other women who have experienced the same type of in-laws in the extended families of Pakistan.

“Motherfucker”

It is said that Rogaland’s daughter-in-law was called a whore, a bitch, and a puppy by the in-laws, while the grandson was called a son-in-law.

The boy is also said to have been subjected to regular physical violence in the home by the four defendants.

The prosecution believes that this can be documented through medical examinations and specialized evaluations of the child’s behavior.

According to the prosecutor, the in-laws refused to allow the woman to attend a Norwegian course because they did not want her to integrate into Norwegian society.

– By depriving her of the opportunity to learn Norwegian and preventing her from learning about Norwegian society, they took away her independence. She was also unable to obtain a permanent residence permit in Norway, as this requires Norwegian skills, says Nina Grande.

The prosecutor emphasized in court that one can be sentenced for deprivation of liberty even if the victim is not necessarily physically confined.

All defendants deny criminal guilt

The defendants reject the prosecution’s accusations.

– My client denies that there was violence as explained by the victim. There are several factors in the case that corroborate that such violence has not occurred, says lawyer Sigurd Rønningen, who defends the victim’s mother-in-law.

He began his procedure by saying the following:

– After five weeks in court, we have more questions than answers.

Rønningen points out, among other things, that the woman offended for several years has had a Pakistani doctor who has not suspected violence against her or her son.

– Honor can come into play here. Maybe you had to do a story about violence to divorce a cousin who was mentally retarded. The court must take this into account when assessing the credibility of the aggrieved party’s explanation, says Rønningen.

He believes that the witnesses who visited the family regularly over the years describe their client as a hospitable woman and a loving and caring mother and grandmother.

– With respect to all the accusations in this case regarding alleged violence, the defenders observe that the complaints are general, and we do not specify where, when and how the different episodes should have occurred.

An honor killing that stopped?

Lawyer Ørjan Eskeland, who defends the woman’s father-in-law, believes that a deep family conflict may be behind the accusations.

– My client explains that his own father asked him to kill his sister because she had dishonored the family, says Eskeland.

When his client refused to carry out an honor killing, the father must have contacted the offended woman in this case, according to Eskeland.

The defendants believe that those who wanted this honor killing have taken revenge on the victim’s father-in-law by dragging him and his family into a criminal case.

They point out, among other things, that the victims were brought to the crisis center by Pakistanis who may have been behind such a revenge operation.

At the crisis center, the woman is said to have submitted a full letter in English that served as the basis for police action and arrests in 2018.

– We believe that she has not formulated this review herself, says lawyer Sigurd Rønningen.

Still scared

The offended woman says that she and the children today have a better life in a hidden direction, but that she is still afraid.

– I still can’t talk openly with people, and I’m afraid to invite friends over. All I want is to live a life in complete freedom and with my children, he says.

In court, however, he asked that the in-laws not be convicted of what they had done.

The father-in-law said in his explanation that the honor of the family has been weakened by the criminal case, but that the daughter-in-law had nothing to fear.

“We want her and the children to live as she wants in the future,” he said.